Wambach, Solo help U.S. win breathtaking game

Twelve years after Brandi Chastain clinched the 1999 World Cup title at the Rose Bowl with a historic penalty kick, the U.S. women’s national team beat favored Brazil in one of the best comebacks in U.S. sports history. Yes, U.S. sports history.

There are moments that you always cherish as a parent watching with your children, and today’s come-from-behind victory by the U.S. national team over Brazil was one of them. With my 7-year-old Kathleen and her Texas HeatWave Pirates and Challenge-Texans Academy teammate Jayme Wilkey watching intently from our couch, I was brought back to the wonderful days of watching Fernando Valenzuela’s magical rookie season in 1981 for my hometown Los Angeles Dodgers with my dad.

This game had everything that makes soccer special, and everything that makes it so frustrating at times. You cannot spell referee without an F, and boy did the referee and referee assistants earn their F today.

The U.S. is blessed to have the best women’s goalkeeper in the world, and Hope Solo was the difference today. She blocked one penalty in the shootout and one in regulation that was disallowed in regulation.

Down a woman, down a goal, the U.S. stepped up and actually dominated possession in overtime. And how about Abby Wambach? All I can say is that her game-tying header was as beautiful as it was clutch.

The U.S. advance to the Women’s World Cup semifinals. My first call after the U.S. beat Brazil was to Dynamo goalkeepers’ coach Tim Hanley, who will give chron.com readers a list of five important goalkeeping tips in regards to penalties. Dynamo goalkeeper Tally Hall, who has had two consecutive shutouts, also will give his list.

I’ve also reached out to some college coaches I respect, so hopefully we can have a story on the subject later in the season. If you watched the U.S. come-from-behind and penalty shootout victory over Brazil today and didn’t fall in love with soccer, you don’t understand sports and never will appreciate soccer.

Yet again, the U.S. women’s soccer program helps carry the torch for the sport in America. By the way, can somebody tell me why many of the soccer stores in the Houston area don’t carry jerseys of the women’s national team in children’s sizes? I’ve checked, and it’s quite disheartening that some major stores in the area don’t carry the women’s jersey but do carry the men’s.

Do these stores not know that the women’s national team has long been mainstream? Do they not remember that over 90,000 watched the 1999 World Cup final at the Rose Bowl?